Our noun-centric language generates a bias in many that the word balance implies a state that is unchanging. That something that is inanimate is in balance. Search unsplash for 'balance':
But from a verb-centric frame of reference, balance is a process. Everything that is alive is in movement. To be in balance is to keep something the same while in movement within an environment.
This movement is driven by a multitude of opposing forces, both originating from the self or from the environment. It is a complex process that evolution has been fine-tuning for billions of years.
Physicists have known for over a century that all reality is a process. What we perceive as things are nothing but recurring patterns in processes. Our language, as David Bohm has hypothesized, limits how we perceive reality.
George Orwell wrote "Newspeak was designed not to extend but to diminish the range of thought.” The culprit as to why there is an increasing lack of meaning in modern society is due to the language that evolved since the industrial revolution.
We are nothing bug cogs in the giant machinery of civilization. Cogs that when worn out are replaced by new cogs. The purpose of this machinery is to remake our world into one that can be controlled but is obviously not in balance.
Even Norbert Wiener's cybernetics, despite its emphasis on feedback, was driven by a notion of control. Wiener's contribution to Electrical Engineering was the establishment of a new way of using electricity not just for power but also for control.
But what is control without balance? Control may be an unsustainable temporary balance. IA short-term action that may compromise long-term goals.
Goodhart's law states that when we define a measure so as to control a system, that measure often replaces the original mission of the system. Too often, our noun-centric language seeks those few things to control and as a result our efforts control a proxy and not the actual.
Today's civilization measure for progress is GDP growth. This has not made people any happier or slowed down the destruction of the planet. Yet, we are mindlessly stuck in this inexorable path toward extinction.
In a reality of inexhaustible complexity, we must have models with, as Ashby has coined, requisite variety. edge.org/response-detai…
This cannot be achieved using static models, but only can be done using enactive models that are in tune with the world. To model the world, one must emphasize processes of agility and not models of stasis.
There are two cognitive aspects about homo sapiens that are fundamentally different from the great apes. The first is the inclination for shared intentionality and the second is the ability to coordinate through music.
Music is a verb-centric language. Musical notation captures not only sequence but simultaneity. There is an open-endedness that can be expressed at every moment in time. These are all made coherent in multiple layers of durations in time.
Music is so fundamental to human cognition in that it is one of the last things people with Alzheimer's forget. Perhaps that's because a song is not just a thing. It is something that is experienced and lived.
The curse of knowledge is that experts become unconscious of their current knowledge and forget how they arrived at that knowledge. missdcoxblog.wordpress.com/2021/03/29/the…
One of the greatest flaws of current education is the assumption that comprehension leads to competence. It's a completely upside-down model of learning!
Explaining complex narratives is also very difficult to get across when you begin with the conclusion and work yourself backward. This is how proofs are presented in mathematics. There's a statement and you find a way to discover why it is true.
There's an intrinsic asymmetry in how reality is understood and how we manipulate our world. Appreciating art is different from creating art. But to gain a deeper understanding one has to be able to create.
Let's take drawing as an example. There is a common myth that drawing is an innate talent. The reality is, people who can't draw haven't learned a vocabulary for drawing. You cannot speak a language if you haven't learned its vocabulary.
Thus to create something in a medium, one needs to learn how to express thoughts in that medium. The Chinese knew this when they identified playing a musical instrument, painting, calligraphy, and playing Go as art forms.
Is it possible to create a verb-centric language with only a sequential language?
One can classify noun-centric languages in how they construct their verbs. English and German follow satellite-framing, while Romantic languages follow verb-frame. The former express paths and the latter express manner. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verb_fram…
I'm an English speaker but I often get stumped in my writing with particles like in, at, on etc. It is ambiguous to me as to what is the appropriate path term to use. My way to validate it is to actually vocalize so I can tell if it sounds right.
The reductionist methods of neuroscience have created psychiatric practices that treats mental disorders exclusively using chemical solutions.
There is of course no doubt that a person cannot think his way out of chemical imbalances. However, the brain's function is also to develop for itself the methods to find equilibrium.
Therefore, if we never give the opportunity for brains to learn how to do this, then we will always have people dependent of artificial crutches.
"Real business value" is a cognitive bias of what is deemed important and not what actually is. The correlation between what a business pays for and what it needs is rarely a strong one.
A lot of public companies buy their own stock. Does that create 'real business value' or are they just gaming perceptions?
This reminds me of Wittgenstein's language game. Wittgenstein argued that to understand the meaning of words, one has to know what language game is being played. This is the same for 'value'.
Indeed, a recent paper question the notion of biological plausibility. It's a fuzzy concept that too many researchers have a bias that it is well defined. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rs…
"Claims of biological plausibility are shown to be incoherent from a level of mechanism view and more generally are vacuous."